The Wounds in the Walls by Heidi Cullinan

his hands along the walls as he ascended. The thumping was rhythmic now, as were the cries. They were coming from his own room, and they were… familiar. Heart in his throat and dread in his heart, Mike rounded the corner and listened—
     
    —and then the dream stopped, and he was Mike Clarke again. He was on his knees and vomiting as the ghost ran through him, back and forth, its fury radiating in Mike’s bones.
     
    “No!” it cried. “No! You remember nothing for over one hundred fifty years, and then you remember that ? No! No! ”
     
    Mike tried to cry out, but he just heaved, over and over and over, until he began to bring up blood.
     
    And then suddenly it stopped. He looked up, blearily, and saw the ghost and Pete Eason struggling on the bed, the specter flailing beneath Pete’s hold.
     
    “You’re going to kill him!” Pete shouted at the ghost.
     
    The ghost started to sob. “He wasn’t supposed to remember that !”
     
    Around them, the walls of the bedroom began to swell.
     
    Keeping the ghost pinned, Pete turned to Mike. “You okay?”
     
    Mike couldn’t answer. He still felt sick, but some of it was from what he’d seen. He was the tutor. Pete was right. The ghost was right. He always does this, the specter had said. Which meant Mike had come here before. He was caught in a loop too. He and the ghost both were.
     
    He looked up at Pete. “But not you,” he whispered. “We’re caught, but you’re not.”
     
    “You remembered something,” Pete said, ignoring him. “So you admit now that you’re involved? That you’re Michael Emery in the same way that I’m Peter Underwood?”
     
    Mike nodded and swallowed against a raw throat. “I’ve been a pawn. This whole time, I’ve been a pawn.”
     
    And as he said the words, he heard them echo across time, and the present faded once again into the past. He was standing beside a lake, standing in the tall grass with Peter Underwood.
     
    Peter was shaking. “I didn’t want you to know,” he whispered. “I never wanted you to know.”
     
    Michael Emery laughed bitterly. “Of course you didn’t. I couldn’t look properly like a fool, could I, if I found out you were with another man?”
     
    Peter began to cry. “Mikey, please,” he whispered, and then his voice deepened. “Clarke. Clarke!”
     
    “Clarke!”
     
    The past faded, and Pete Eason was gripping Mike’s shoulders. The ghost was hovering behind him, looking miserable.
     
    “He remembers,” it was whispering. “He remembers what I did.”
     
    “I don’t,” Pete snapped. “So someone had damn well better tell me what was going on.”
     
    Mike looked at the ghost and felt his heart break from one hundred fifty years away. “I caught him. I caught him with another man.”
     
    Pete frowned. “Really?”
     
    “It’s not what you think.” The ghost was drifting now, rising up from the floor, and Mike could see through him. Past and present kept flickering before Mike, like a lamp with a bad connection, and then the past was back again, stronger than ever.
     
    “It’s not what you think,” Peter Underwood whispered. But all Michael could see was that the boy’s mouth was swollen from sucking on another man’s cock.
     
    “Here I thought you were an innocent. Here I thought—” Michael broke off, then began to pace. “And you did it in my room. ” The tickets and letter in his pocket were a weight now. He felt like such a fool.
     
    “Mikey, please,” Peter begged. “Please, don’t— please !” He reached for Michael.
     
    Michael tried to step back, but then the past flickered and returned to the present. Pete Eason was watching him intently.
     
    “I need to get out of here,” Mike whispered. He tried to rise.
     
    Pete kept him from it. “Ara?” he called, not looking away from Mike. “What happened to Mike the other times he came to this house? In his other lives?”
     
    “Bad things,” the ghost said. Ara. Mike stared up at